Western Telecommunications Alliance

Today, NECA, WTA and OPASTCO filed a Petition for Reconsideration and Clarification of the FCC’s Order on USF and intercarrier compensation reform.  The associations also issued a press release.

On December 20th, NTCA, WTA, NECA and OPASTCO responded to a letter sent to the FCC by the CTIA – The Wireless Association on the treatment of intraMTA traffic exchange between local exchange carriers and CMRS providers.

Today, NTCA, WTA OPASTCO and NECA filed a request for a waiver of the page limitation imposed on Petitions for Reconsideration, Oppositions to Petitions for Reconsideration, and Replies to Oppositions in the USF/ICC Reform Order.

On December 8, WTA filed comments with the Office of Government Ethics expressing concerns about an aspect of the agency’s newly proposed ethics rules that would prohibit federal executive branch employees from attending conferences hosted by industry trade associations.

On November 29th, representatives from WTA, NTCA, OPASTCO and NECA met with the FCC to discuss “the continuing problem of calls not properly completing to consumers in rural areas and expressed frustration with the industry’s lack of appropriate and timely response.”  Read the notice of ex parte here.

Today, WTA, OPASTCO, NTCA, ITTA, ACA and RICA filed joint comments with the Library of Congress’ Copyright Office in response to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking implementing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

On October 19th, 13 state telco associations wrote to the FCC in support of the industry Consensus Framework.  They write that “it is of importance that the Rural Plan portion of the Industry Consensus Framework not only proactively addresses universal service reform and intercarrier compensation reform, it maintains the strong benefit to the economy provided by rural incumbent local exchange carriers.”  Read more…

This week, representatives from WTA, NTCA, OPASTCO and NECA met with Wireline Bureau and FCC Commissioner staff on several occasions to relay our concerns about the proposed Order due for a vote at the end of the month.  The notices of ex parte can be found below:

October 17th meeting with staff for Commissioners McDowell, Copps and Clyburn

October 18th meeting with Chairman Genachowski’s staff and Wireline Bureau staff

On October 5th, representatives from WTA, OPASTCO, NECA and NTCA met with staff at the FCC to discuss call termination problems and present data from NECA’s test call project.  The Notice of ex parte can be found here.

Today OPASTCO, NTCA, WTA, ITTA and RICA filed comments in response to the FCC’s Public Notice regarding Regional Sports Networks.  In their filing, the associations “urge the Commission to acknowledge in its RSN Report that small and mid- sized multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) continue to encounter significant barriers to obtaining access to must-have RSN programming, and that these barriers impede the ability of these MVPDs to compete in or even enter the video marketplace, which, in turn, impedes broadband adoption and investment.”